Blog Posts Tagged with "Identity Theft"

How often do you think about protecting your online identity? Unless you live and breathe in the infosecurity arena, the reality is, you probably don’t spend a lot of time thinking about your online privacy, let alone worrying about it.

The movie “Identity Thief” opened nationwide last weekend, and while we love a good laugh, this flick comes at a cost: the truth. Here are five major plot points that do a disservice to an often-misunderstood crime...

With the holiday shopping season and after holiday season sales over, it’s time to review our credit card statements and make sure that everything that is on there was something you purchased. With most of us using our card a lot more during this time, there’s more chance of fraud or identity theft...

Scammers are taking advantage of a product financing offer that presents identity thieves with the opportunity to fraudulently obtain instant credit approval to make online purchases. The crime is simple to carry out. All scammers need are the basic types of information commonly exposed in data breaches...

A few weeks ago I got a text message from a phone number I didn’t recognize, with a rather odd message. I sent a text back asking, “Who do U think U sent ur txt 2?” The response, “Myrtle!” I’m not Myrtle. Turns out they were using a phone number they had found online that was associated for the Myrtle they knew.

Services such as BillMeLater, a PayPal company that allows customers to make purchases on credit after a simple sign-up process and credit check, have created an identity theft trend and left victims fighting to clear their names...

Though it could create procedural challenges for the IRS and the U.S. Postal Service, Congress could solve the problem by simply refusing to issue refunds before April 15. That way they could see who has duplicate returns filed, and investigate before signing over checks to the bad guys...

I’m a South Carolina taxpayer, and therefore, a potential victim of the massive South Carolina Department of Revenue Breach. I work in the identity theft and data risk industry, so when I heard about how everything was being handled and what was being offered, I was upset...

I’ve been occasionally revisiting the topic of laws and regulations prohibiting the use of SSNs, most recently in 2008 when I identified over 45 U.S. federal and state laws regulating and often prohibiting, the use of SSNs as identifiers. I provide pointers at the end of this post to some other reports...

The digitization of medical records may make folks queasy, but it is also efficient, offering an opportunity to save both money and lives. It is in fact inevitable. Unfortunately, so are data breaches and the identity compromises that follow. We need to be deadly serious because lives are at literally at stake...

Four men were arrested for their roles in an identity theft scheme involving the theft of credit card numbers used to fraudulently purchase fuel at gas stations in order to be sold, distributed, or otherwise used by the defendants in order to obtain criminal proceeds...

Mobile devices are on the move, meaning they can more easily be lost or stolen and their screens and keyboards are easier targets for “over the shoulder” browsing. When we lose our phones, we think about the pain and cost of replacing the device. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg...

Identity theft is one area where the ignorance of children and their parents can be more costly than a wobbly landing or delayed start off the blocks. It can hamper their ability to secure funding to attend college or buy a car, and to land a job. Children aren’t the only ones who are vulnerable to identity theft...

We can’t sugarcoat it, because there’s more at stake for online users than going for gold or settling for silver. One blip on the beam or pratfall on the pommel can make a bank-account balance drop faster than an icy judge’s score. And it’ll take more than a Wheaties box to build it back...

The Holmes decision further underscores difficulties in securing any recovery on a data breach lawsuit absent actual identity theft. However, the lengthy history of this case — dating back to 2008 including a challenge to a Court approved settlement — highlights that such cases are protracted and costly to defend...

It’s no longer possible to deny that your life in the physical world and your digital life are one and the same. While you are present here on the ground, you also exist online, whether you know it or like it or not. Coming to terms with this reality will help you make better decisions in many aspects of your life...